Do you have a child who rarely gets a cold?

[2535and3]

Do you have a child who rarely gets a cold? You know, the one who can sit next to a sniffling classmate, survive winter, and somehow avoid bringing home every bug going around?

What are you doing differently?

Diet? Immunity boosting supplements? Superior genes? Force feed them garlic? What?

Have been enjoying fewer colds over the last couple of months and not wishing summer away but come the 2nd week in September and dc13 will guaranteed be down with a high temperature cough sniffles.

So whats your secret to autumn winter that aren't just cold after cold? My dc catches a viral fever cough every 5-6 weeks. Gets the flu nasal vaccine of course.

Definetly just luck/ genes I think. Me and two of my sisters were rarely ill as children. Our youngest sister with a different dad was poorly all the time, she used to catch every cold going

DS13 never gets ill including colds. Has always eaten well and enjoyed fruit and veg etc. But I think it's just luck.
Even when kids in his class have been dropping like flies he hasn't caught anything. Nothing we've done

Luck mostly.

Also playing outside a lot in all weathers. Plenty of playing in the dirt etc. Irregular baths and only using cloths/vinegar to clean. We only use bleach and antibac when someone is ill to prevent spread.

We're also lax with washing sheets (every 2 weeks) and towels (similar).

I'm sure being over clean makes people more ill. My sample size of local friends agrees with my hypothesis.

Also imagine it’s most likely genetics and a bit of luck. DD 6 has maybe one cold per year, never enough to stay off school. She’s never had a chest or ear infection, or been to the dr for anything bar vaccinations and a bump on the head when she was at nursery, and we’ve managed to avoid antibiotics so far. Started nursery at 10 months so exposed to aaaallll the germs, but on the other hand was a covid baby so was exposed to very few germs before then.

It’s all down to luck and genetics. DD got all the standard colds when she was a toddler and early primary school, but she’s not been off sick for the last 4 years and she’s 12 now.

DS2 is hardly ever ill. He never got COVID when the rest of us did. He had 100% attendance at primary school right up until the Pandemic. All I can think that is different is he absolutely loves fruit. He always has. Anything and everything. All his snacks are fruit. He will go through punnets and punnets. I had to stop buying strawberries one year because he ate so many he developed a rash. I felt like one of those Middle class performative mums going ' Darling, you've had far too much fruit now!'

Mine rarely get a cold (teenagers now except the youngest). All breast fed for 2-3 years, all spent most of their toddler years digging in mud in the garden or getting filthy in parks. We’ve got a nice tidy house now but I certainly wasn’t a clean freak when they were younger (far from it), as I didn’t have time. So that probably helped.
My husband and I weren’t breasted at all and we rarely get a cold either. Could be genetic.

3 Kids and us never get colds
No idea how we avoid these bugs

Things we may do differently than others
our house rarely goes above 15c in winter
We are veggie and eat a lot of fruit and veg
We were never into sanitising and happy to get out in the dirt
I breastfed each for a year

We didn’t get covid either

DS1 has always caught every possible bug or virus going since nursery. DS2 is hardly ever sick so when he says he feels unwell we believe him. He is however, prone to catching Covid and then sharing it with the whole family.

I think it’s total luck. At least the evidence from my two is it’s that.

I have one child who I don’t think has ever had a temperature in his 6 years of existence. He gets ill maybe 1-2 times per year, where he is a little out of sorts for 12h then bounces back.

I also have one child who is permanently snotty and throws off a fever of 38 degrees plus with every single illness. He is ill every 6 or so weeks I reckon.

Both mix fed breast and formula. Both went to the same childminder. Both eat the same diet (generally very healthy - we are lucky there as well). Both are very energetic and live outside. It must be something genetic.

I could probably count on one hand how many colds DS8 has had in his life. We all came down with Covid a few years ago, didn’t test him but he had no symptoms whatsoever so I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t catch it. We do nothing different, he doesn’t have a super healthy diet or anything. I think it’s just luck.

We rarely get colds. Or bugs in general. It’s just luck I think. No one was breastfed.

its luck.
I have identical twins, same class/clubs/ friends. One always gets ill, one never does.

Luck and genetics - one of mine is very hardy the other 2 catch loads id colds including in summer. Myself I have awful immunity and always unwell (currently really unwell with a cold in JUNE) but my husband never does.

wondering if sleep has anything to do with it as those adults I know who sleep loads seem to do better.

Dont flame me but I breast fed.

There’s no secret - it’s genetics.

DS hardly gets ill, or if he does, it barely touches him. DH is similar.

Me and DD? No such luck.

My oldest (age three) who was formula fed never catches colds! She wasn't ill at all for the first two years of life despite going to childcare. My breastfed one year has lots of colds!

I think it's luck

It’s genetic I think - I never get colds, DS never gets colds (except for a brief period aged about 18 months when he started nursery), DH gets everything going.

There is a slight element of “dressing gown of doom” there, in that I’d ignore a bit of a snotty nose (and ignore it in DS and pack him off to school) and DH thinks he is dying, but he does genuinely also have more viral illnesses than DS and I ever do.

This is interesting because my firstborn who is rarely ill had eczema as a baby and we had to rarely bath her as even the warm water irritated her skin. She washes a bit more now (her skin has cleared up) but not everyday - she never had coughs or colds

Luck. Her diet is crap and she always forgets to take her vitamins. She just kind of grew out of it?

It's hard to say really but I think a good sleep routine is worth it's weight. DS is 18 now. Hardly ever been poorly, I can count on one hand how many absences throughout all the school years. Not breastfed, never taken a multivitamin, but we have a varied rainbow diet and he's always slept really well. I only get ill when I'm tired and rundown.

Taking good quality vitamin D from October to April makes a huge difference.

Mine is rarely ill. I can count the times in her life she's vomited on one hand and she gets the odd sniffle but never bad enough to keep her off school. I breastfed her for 3 years so maybe that helped. She doesn't eat brilliantly but she does eat a lot of berries, prawns and salmon (costs me a fortune!) in between all the biscuits, maybe there's something in them?

Oh yeh, and we're extremely slovenly about housework. If a messy house improves the immune system, that would definitely explain it.

Just luck/genetics I think for us. Neither of mine are prone to illnesses, they rarely get properly colds, just a runny nose (DH and I do catch them though!) and the very occasional sickness bug but they are almost never ill. I don’t think we do anything special, they eat decently, are active, have good immune systems from growing up with pets and playing in the mud, just usual kid stuff really. They were both breastfed, perhaps that has some minor impact, but I think it’s mostly just the way they are.